Tuesday, 30 June 2015

“Among other
discourse, my cozen Roger told us a thing certain, that the Archbishop of
Canterbury; that now is, do keep a wench, and that he is as very a wencher as
can be; and tells us it is a thing publickly known that Sir Charles Sidley had
got away one of the Archbishop’s wenches from him, and the Archbishop sent to
him to let him know that she was his kinswoman, and did wonder that he would
offer any dishonour to one related to him. To which Sir Charles Sidley is said
to answer, “A pox take his Grace! pray tell his Grace that I believe he finds
himself too old, and is afraid that I should outdo him among his girls, and
spoil his trade.” But he makes no more of doubt to say that the Archbishop is a
wencher, and known to be so, which is one of the most astonishing things that I
have heard of.” Samuel Pepys “Diary
Monday 29 July 1667.”

Pepy’s
cozen Roger was always good for a bit of scurrilous gossip. He was not particularly scrupulous
about his sources though and his stories were often slanderous and sometimes
just plainly ridiculous. Gilbert Sheldon,
the Archbishop of Canterbury who was the subject here of cozen Roger’s gossip,
appears to have lived a fairly blameless life and, far from being a ‘wencher’, was
so uninterested in women that he never even married.

Sheldon
was born in Staffordshire in 1598 and was educated at Oxford. He became
involved in the church and politics, was a Royal Chaplain to Charles I and was
well known as a prominent Royalist in the run up to the Civil War. During the
Protectorate he lost his church livings and survived on the generosity of
friends and supporters until the Restoration in 1660 when Charles II made him
Bishop of London. He became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1663 and Chancellor of
the University of Oxford in 1667. He
opposed Charles II’s proposed Declaration of Indulgence which sought to extend
religious freedom to Catholics and it is said he once refused to give the King
communion because of his majesty’s libertine lifestyle. He was one of
Christopher Wren’s earliest architectural patrons – Sheldon commissioned and paid
for the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford and chose Wren as the architect. He died
in 1677 and is buried in the Minster of St John the Baptist in Croydon.

Sheldon’s
spectacular funeral monument is by Jaspar Latham (died 1693) a master mason who
worked with Christopher Wren. Only four funerary monuments by him are known but
the other are not in the same class as this one. The reclining figure of the
bishop was once set against a grand architectural backdrop decorated with putti
and garlands but this was destroyed in the church fire of 1867. Miraculously
the bishop survived along with the chest tomb decorated with a relief panel of
skulls and bones and winged hourglasses.

The Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford

Latham
worked with Sir Christopher Wren as a mason contractor on the rebuilding of St
Mildred Poultry and on St Paul’s Cathedral for which, in the 1680’s he received
almost £10,000 in regular payments for masonry and carved ornaments. He fell
out with Sir Christopher in 1689 when he was working for Wren at Hampton Court
and part of the building works he was responsible for as mason collapsed
killing two workmen and injuring 11 others. The comptroller of works William Talman tried
to blame Wren for the accident and Latham joined him. The furious architect dispensed
immediately with the mason’s services at both Hampton Court and St Pauls and
objected ‘against Mr Latham for a madman.’

Gilbert
Sheldon’s ghost is supposed to have haunted the church following the fire of
1867 which destroyed his monument. He was generally seen moping sorrowfully
around the nave at “about a quarter to six in the evening.” He kept this up
until 1960 when the monument was restored and has not been seen since.